Wright, Jane

SECRET CITY FILM COLLECTION
ORAL HISTORY OF JANE WRIGHT
Interviewed by Keith McDaniel
November 3, 2004
MR. MCDANIEL: Alrighty, so, I don’t know anything about you, so tell me, tell me a little bit about how you or your family came to Oak Ridge, ended up at Oak Ridge. MRS. WRIGHT: Well we ended up in Oak Ridge because my dad started working for Tennessee Eastman. We lived in Knoxville. We actually lived with my grandmother, my mother’s mother, and my father started working in Oak Ridge for Tennessee Eastman. He worked there for several months before we actually moved, because that was in 1943 and we had to wait for a house to be built that would accommodate a family of two children, at the time, but they were expecting their third and they actually wanted to be close to a school. So they ended up getting a house down about a block from Cedar Hill School and where my mother still lives. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MRS. WRIGHT: Yes. My dad died about 10 years ago but my mother who will be 90 in February still lives in that cemesto house she moved into in December of ’43. MR. MCDANIEL: What is it? MRS. WRIGHT: It’s a C house.
MR. MCDANIEL: A C house. MRS. WRIGHT: A greatly remodeled C house. MR. MCDANIEL: What, so how old were you when you came to Oak Ridge? MRS. WRIGHT: Five. MR. MCDANIEL: You were five. So what was it like? What do you remember in those days? MRS. WRIGHT: Well I think that most people, particularly people my age, mostly remember mud. It was very, very muddy. Of course that was farm land and they built the houses and there was, I mean, you couldn’t plant grass in December and I don’t guess and it was red clay mud. So that almost every place you went, you had to dig your car out of the mud somewhat. We continued to go to Knoxville pretty often because my grandmother was there and my parents had a lot of connections there. So one of the things I remember was going or coming. We almost always had a flat tire and we had to dig out usually before we left. Well I didn’t, but my dad did. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? Is that right? So you were, you were a child and you remember the mud and what else? MRS. WRIGHT: I remember the mud. One of the things that was typical of Oak Ridge when I was young was boardwalks. We had boardwalks up through the woods like, actually between our house and the house next door, there was a boardwalk that went to the lane behind us. There was a boardwalk that went directly across the street from our house, a boardwalk that went up to Cedar Hill School. All through the woods there were boardwalks so people could, well you just walked a lot then. There were buses but we were near Jackson Square and that was the main downtown area of Oak Ridge at the time, and so we walked down there a lot. That was one of our activities and there were a couple of movie theaters, a couple of drug stores, grocery store and all there. I remember there were many, many children. Of course, the adults were mostly young adults and had children and often times, several children. So we always had playmates lots and lots of playmates. But the main thing that stands out about the first few months in Oak Ridge was that mud. MR. MCDANIEL: What was Christmas like in Oak Ridge? MRS. WRIGHT: Well it was, I really can’t remember all that much about Christmas other than just Santa Claus coming and whatnot. I think we went to my grandmother’s then Christmas Day. In subsequent years, we had friends that we got together with or relatives. MR. MCDANIEL: Do you remember very much about the town? I mean, you know, did the town put up Christmas decorations? MRS. WRIGHT: You know, I don’t recall that in the very early days, and probably there wasn’t that much done before the war ended, but I don’t know. I don’t have much recollection of that. The thing that I do remember with us, is going out and cutting down a Christmas tree. Pretty often we would go, my dad actually owns some land in the Karns community and it had a lot of pine trees on it and we went out and cut down trees. But I don’t really remember that much celebration in the very early Oak Ridge days, but I’ve probably just forgotten that. MR. MCDANIEL: Ok, so your family came here in ‘44? MRS. WRIGHT: Three, ’43, December of ’43. MR. MCDANIEL: And you were five? MRS. WRIGHT: Umhum. MR. MCDANIEL: And so by the time you were 11 that is when they opened. MRS. WRIGHT: Opened the gates.
MR. MCDANIEL: Do you remember that? MRS. WRIGHT: I do. I remember it. I don’t, I can’t tell you specific memories. I was so disappointed about them opening the gates because I still hadn’t reached the age of 12 when you had to have a badge and I was really looking forward to having a badge. That signified being older and going through the gates, showing your badge and so I was sorry they opened the gates at that time. So I didn’t ever have that opportunity to have a badge. I just remember all the celebrations, but the gates were certainly a vital point in Oak Ridge. You know the people who came to visit had to have a pass and so we always met them at the gates, friends from Knoxville, relatives, and to lead them where ever they were going, to our house I guess mostly. Sometimes we had to sit in line to wait to get in or out to show, my parents show their badges. But actual specific things about the gate opening I don’t recall. I remember people being at Jackson Square and it being very exciting but that’s really all I remember about that. MR. MCDANIEL: Do you remember walking to the grocery store with your…? MRS. WRIGHT: Oh yeah, walk down through the woods, walk down Michigan Avenue and cut down one of the streets and walk down through woods behind the Chapel-on-the-Hill which is the United Church now. One thing that was really neat for kids, not only did they have the playgrounds at all the schools, but they had neighborhood playgrounds, like in the woods behind our house. Behind lots of neighborhoods there would be small playgrounds with like a slide and a swing set and maybe a sandbox and a teeter-totter and so... so many provisions were made for children. It was just a fantastic place for children, lots of activities at the schools, planned activities for children. There was a coach that stayed at the elementary school and of course all kinds of games, ballgames, dance clubs, and so on after school, even in elementary school. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MRS. WRIGHT: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: Now do you think that changed very much or did it kind of remain the same as you grew up? I mean after the Army left. MRS. WRIGHT: I think it changed a little, but not totally. I was not as involved after I was out of elementary school in that particular program but my siblings were. So it did remain for some time and the schools were just a center of activity for us. We just spent a lot of time at the schools. MR. MCDANIEL: Ok, so you say you grew up in Oak Ridge… MRS. WRIGHT: Grew up. MR. MCDANIEL: Grew up in Oak Ridge. MRS. WRIGHT: Right. MR. MCDANIEL: And just ended up staying here, got married… MRS. WRIGHT: Got married. MR. MCDANIEL: Had a family. Tell me about that. MRS. WRIGHT: Well I went to college and met my husband who actually co-oped in Oak Ridge. He’s from Mt. Juliet, Tennessee. He co-oped in Oak Ridge and we got married in 1959 and stayed in Oak Ridge. We lived in, I guess, about 15 years ago we bought about 20 acres in Roane County and lived in Kingston for 13 years until this Spring and moved back to Oak Ridge. So we’ve been here most of time. I've been here almost all my life actually. MR. MCDANIEL: So how many kids, children do you have? MRS. WRIGHT: I have two children, a son, Jeff, who’s in Raleigh, North Carolina, and a daughter, Wendy, and her husband. Both are married and have children and Wendy and her family are in Knoxville, Tennessee. MR. MCDANIEL: Ok, so did you work in Oak Ridge? MRS. WRIGHT: I worked for a short time at the plant before I had children, yes. MR. MCDANIEL: Which plant? MRS. WRIGHT: Y-12. MR. MCDANIEL: What did you do there? MRS. WRIGHT: My husband worked there and I worked as a secretary. MR. MCDANIEL: Ok, so through the years what kind of changes have you seen in Oak Ridge? Good, bad, you know. You lived here, you know. Your children grew up here. MRS. WRIGHT: Right. Oak Ridge was very different when I was young. I think because of the fact that it was a closed city and it kept that feeling even for a time after the gates were opened. It was always a very safe place to be. Of course, every place changes. I think Oak Ridge has changed like many other places have. It was still a very good place to grow up for my children as well. Very good schools and I thought plenty of activities for young people. I'm sure the youth would like to have more available but really there was always a lot going on, but it has changed. There are different places to eat. The Snow White, which was a big place to eat as I grew up, is probably something most old Oak Ridgers remember fondly and a different Downtown and a different movie theater and that kind of thing. MR. MCDANIEL: The Snow White, where was it originally? I mean, I know it was where Todd’s Maytag is at one point. MRS. WRIGHT: Yeah before that it....it was further west on the Turnpike where, let’s see, across from the Dodge dealer, kind of where the Physicians Plaza is now, kind of behind that. Of course, as most teenagers like to do, we spent a lot of time driving around the Snow White and then stopping for a little bit and then we would continue to circle around the Snow White. That was one of the big things to do. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, my goodness. Where did you, this is kind of off the subject, but where did you all live in Kingston? MRS. WRIGHT: We lived on Poplar Springs Road, kind of in the country. We actually had a lake house at one time in what is known as Sugar Grove Valley and still had that when we bought the acreage and were there in ‘93 when we had the big blizzard. We lost a number of trees on our property on Poplar Springs and several trees fell on the roof of our lake house. After that we decided that two houses was really one too many for us to take care of. So we sold our lake house and just lived on Poplar Springs Road.
MR. MCDANIEL: Poplar Springs Road now that’s… MRS. WRIGHT: Off of Gallagher. MR. MCDANIEL: Off of Gallagher. MRS. WRIGHT: We were only, it was only about 15 miles from Oak Ridge. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MRS. WRIGHT: Just a short trip. MR. MCDANIEL: Now was it on the north side of 40 or the south side of 40? MRS. WRIGHT: South. MR. MCDANIEL: South side. I'm trying to think, now is that… MRS. WRIGHT: It’s on the way to I-40. Is that north or south? MR. MCDANIEL: It’s on the way to I-40. MRS. WRIGHT: Yeah, not Poplar Creek. Now Poplar Creek is toward Oliver Springs. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, but if you go, if you go down Gallaher… MRS. WRIGHT: You turn left on Poplar Springs. You would turn right… MR. MCDANIEL: At that little church, is that little church there? MRS. WRIGHT: That is Poplar Springs. That just circles around on Gallaher. We turned right across from Lawnville Road and we were about half way around and Poplar Spring just circles. It’s just a small circle around Gallaher Road. MR. MCDANIEL: That’s right. I grew up in Kingston so… MRS. WRIGHT: Did you? We liked Kingston. MR. MCDANIEL: My mom and dad moved there in ‘56 and I was born in ‘57 and they still live in the same house they moved into. MRS. WRIGHT: Is that right? I like Kingston. I’m in a book club and a bridge club of Kingston people and still really enjoy that. MR. MCDANIEL: Well good. Do you have any other stories of when you were growing up in Oak Ridge, when you were a teenager, or any memories that you’d want to share. (Laughs) MRS. WRIGHT: Well, you know it’s hard to think about what kind of things to share. Oak Ridge was just always such a friendly community and I think it was a great place to grow up because there was no class distinction. Everyone always was kind of in the same boat and you didn’t know… It was really hard to tell, when I was young, who had money and who didn’t because everyone just seemed to be kind of the same. Because I guess we all lived in government housing and so that wasn’t an issue. I think in the very early days, one of the really neat things was since everyone was from a different place, everyone had to be friendly. Few people had telephones in the very early days. So the people or person on the street who had a telephone, you went to their house a lot to use their telephone and people just had to get to know each other. It was, I guess, like a big Army base and I think that atmosphere continued. Probably still is that way somewhat in Oak Ridge, that people are outgoing and friendly. It seems to me that way anyway. MR. MCDANIEL: So you’re a little crooked. Sit up a little bit. That’s ok. MRS. WRIGHT: Oh. MR. MCDANIEL: So, let’s see. So you, I imagine that you were in school. I really hadn’t touched on this very much, but I’d like to since you were a student at that time. I guess you were at school during segregation. MRS. WRIGHT: Yes. MR. MCDANIEL: During integration. MRS. WRIGHT: Integration. I was in high school. MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me a little bit about that, about what happened? MRS. WRIGHT: That was a very quiet thing in Oak Ridge as far as I know. We knew they were going to integrate the school and we talked about it. It just happened. I don’t think many people had strong feelings about that at all. I don’t remember that ever being a real problem. It probably became more difficult later on than it did in Oak Ridge in the very beginning. There were not very many black students and it just happened very easily as far as I was aware. MR. MCDANIEL: Do you think that it was because, I mean, this is a government town and the government said, “You’re going to integrate,” and people at Oak Ridge were used to doing, I don’t want to make it sound like they were used to doing what the government said… MRS. WRIGHT: (Laugh) What the government said. MR. MCDANIEL: I mean they were used to following the rules of the government somewhat and this was just, it seemed, being another thing that the government said they’re going to have to do. MRS. WRIGHT: Well… MR. MCDANIEL: I know that may simplify it a little bit but… MRS. WRIGHT: That could possibly be part of it. I think one of the different things about Oak Ridge, Oak Ridge was certainly not a typical southern town. There were people from so many different places and different countries even. So that was not all that different for Oak Ridge and there weren’t, well, I know there were many people with prejudices, but it wasn’t talked about quite as much as perhaps it was in other places. MR. MCDANIEL: Because Oak Ridge was already a melting pot? MRS. WRIGHT: It was a melting pot. MR. MCDANIEL: What about, how was that? I guess you grew up with it so it wasn’t really different. I mean you grew up with people that were from different cultures and different religions and different backgrounds. MRS. WRIGHT: Right. MR. MCDANIEL: And things such as that. MRS. WRIGHT: You just thought that was the way things were. It was like, I remember, after people, what had gone on in Oak Ridge as far as the bomb was concerned. In fact, the bomb was worked on here. People in Knoxville would say, “Aren’t you scared to live in Oak Ridge.” Well, no. People in Oak Ridge just didn’t ever think about anything like that. We lived here during that phase of Oak Ridge and we didn’t, I don’t know, I’m sure there were people who were concerned about it, but I didn’t ever hear people talk about being worried about living here due to the type of work that was going on here. But maybe I just haven’t been that tuned in to what the difficulties were. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. Do you remember your parents talking about after the bomb was dropped? You probably were a little too young to remember that. MRS. WRIGHT: Well, what I remember my parents talking about more was later on, as we were older, talking about that and talking about what people said. Of course, what was going on in Oak Ridge was always a big topic of discussion with their friends from Knoxville. I think they were always saying something to them about, “Well, don’t you really wonder what’s going on at the plant there?” And they were actually out of town when the war ended and my grandmother was staying with us and we just, we didn’t talk about the fact that the bomb was dropped, as much as we did about how happy we were that the war was over. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. Now you had brothers and sisters. MRS. WRIGHT: I did. When we first moved, there were two of us and the following spring I had another sister, following that I had another sister and then another brother. So there are five of us. MR. MCDANIEL: Five of you. How many of you are still in the area? MRS. WRIGHT: I’m the only one in Oak Ridge. I have a sister in Clinton, another sister in Chattanooga, and my brothers are in Nashville, and so were not, they’re not far away. MR. MCDANIEL: What about your children? MRS. WRIGHT: My children are, my son’s in Raleigh. My daughter’s in Knoxville. MR. MCDANIEL: That’s right. MRS. WRIGHT: So they’re pretty close too. MR. MCDANIEL: Pretty close. Is there anything else you can remember? Anything you want to talk about? MRS. WRIGHT: Well I guess there is one thing that was always interesting to some people about Oak Ridge. In the very early days, there was only one, maybe two church buildings, including the Chapel-on-the-Hill, and many weddings were held there. I went to First Methodist Church and we had Sunday school in the old high school, at Blankenship Field. Then it was a junior high and now just Blankenship Field remains, but from there we had church services in the Ridge Theatre, and another church had the part of the school that had the auditorium in it. So they had Sunday school and church in the other half of the school building. And different other churches met in other theaters. It became funny to visitors who would go to church with us and the children would often say as they were going in, “Oh, do we get to get popcorn?” And things like that we didn’t think of as being unusual, but to other people they were probably kind of different. It would seem different. MR. MCDANIEL: And that’s kind of interesting that it’s kind of come full circle now. MRS. WRIGHT: Right. MR. MCDANIEL: Because churches bought the Grove Theatre. MRS. WRIGHT: Right, exactly. Going back to that and I think it’s great that we’re using some of the old buildings. I really like the fact that some of the older buildings are remaining and we’re trying to use them. Its really miraculous pretty much everything was built for a short time, and the houses in particular, I think, were very well built, and here we are sixty years in houses that were supposed to last maybe 7 years.
MR. MCDANIEL: That’s amazing at how many people live in the same house that they moved in to. MRS. WRIGHT: They’re really are not that many that still live in the same houses, but there is a new interest I think. The young are buying some of the cemesto houses and working on them and I think that that’s really good. My daughter has several friends that have bought cemesto houses in Oak Ridge and have remodeled them and really love the feeling of being in a neighborhood that they have in those houses and being in the center of town. That is one real plus about many of those neighborhoods. MR. MCDANIEL: You know my wife and I, we got married, we lived in Oak Ridge. We got married 12 years ago and when we got married we rented a B house on East Price Road for a couple of years, and then we bought a D house on Pleasant Road, 100 Pleasant Road. MRS. WRIGHT: Umhum. MR. MCDANIEL: Off Pennsylvania, and that’s what we did. We remodeled it. We enclosed the garage because I needed an office...new windows, new roof, new siding, you know, everything and basically remodeled it. What possessed us to sell it, I don’t know. We should have stayed there. (Laugh) One thing was that back behind where the Highland Apartments and everything was right behind us across the… MRS. WRIGHT: Umhum. MR. MCDANIEL: And we didn’t, we were having children and we weren’t sure we wanted to live there, that was because there were stakeouts in our back yard. MRS. WRIGHT: Right. MR. MCDANIEL: Drug busts and such. But we did that and I’d love to get another D house and do the same thing to it. MRS. WRIGHT: That so funny. Our first house was a B house. I don’t know how many people whose first house was a B house. We really would love to have to remodel that house and stayed in it, but we didn’t really have enough yard. We looked for a D house and couldn’t find one. So we moved to the west end of Oak Ridge, but my parents were just appalled. They said, “Oh, you don’t want to move way out there. That’s just too far,” and we talked so often about how we still would not mind going back to a D house if we could find one. We’d really like something like that because they are so convenient. That’s such a great place to live in the middle of town. MR. MCDANIEL: Alright. Well I think we’re through that’s the end of that tape and…
[End of Interview]

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SECRET CITY FILM COLLECTION
ORAL HISTORY OF JANE WRIGHT
Interviewed by Keith McDaniel
November 3, 2004
MR. MCDANIEL: Alrighty, so, I don’t know anything about you, so tell me, tell me a little bit about how you or your family came to Oak Ridge, ended up at Oak Ridge. MRS. WRIGHT: Well we ended up in Oak Ridge because my dad started working for Tennessee Eastman. We lived in Knoxville. We actually lived with my grandmother, my mother’s mother, and my father started working in Oak Ridge for Tennessee Eastman. He worked there for several months before we actually moved, because that was in 1943 and we had to wait for a house to be built that would accommodate a family of two children, at the time, but they were expecting their third and they actually wanted to be close to a school. So they ended up getting a house down about a block from Cedar Hill School and where my mother still lives. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MRS. WRIGHT: Yes. My dad died about 10 years ago but my mother who will be 90 in February still lives in that cemesto house she moved into in December of ’43. MR. MCDANIEL: What is it? MRS. WRIGHT: It’s a C house.
MR. MCDANIEL: A C house. MRS. WRIGHT: A greatly remodeled C house. MR. MCDANIEL: What, so how old were you when you came to Oak Ridge? MRS. WRIGHT: Five. MR. MCDANIEL: You were five. So what was it like? What do you remember in those days? MRS. WRIGHT: Well I think that most people, particularly people my age, mostly remember mud. It was very, very muddy. Of course that was farm land and they built the houses and there was, I mean, you couldn’t plant grass in December and I don’t guess and it was red clay mud. So that almost every place you went, you had to dig your car out of the mud somewhat. We continued to go to Knoxville pretty often because my grandmother was there and my parents had a lot of connections there. So one of the things I remember was going or coming. We almost always had a flat tire and we had to dig out usually before we left. Well I didn’t, but my dad did. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? Is that right? So you were, you were a child and you remember the mud and what else? MRS. WRIGHT: I remember the mud. One of the things that was typical of Oak Ridge when I was young was boardwalks. We had boardwalks up through the woods like, actually between our house and the house next door, there was a boardwalk that went to the lane behind us. There was a boardwalk that went directly across the street from our house, a boardwalk that went up to Cedar Hill School. All through the woods there were boardwalks so people could, well you just walked a lot then. There were buses but we were near Jackson Square and that was the main downtown area of Oak Ridge at the time, and so we walked down there a lot. That was one of our activities and there were a couple of movie theaters, a couple of drug stores, grocery store and all there. I remember there were many, many children. Of course, the adults were mostly young adults and had children and often times, several children. So we always had playmates lots and lots of playmates. But the main thing that stands out about the first few months in Oak Ridge was that mud. MR. MCDANIEL: What was Christmas like in Oak Ridge? MRS. WRIGHT: Well it was, I really can’t remember all that much about Christmas other than just Santa Claus coming and whatnot. I think we went to my grandmother’s then Christmas Day. In subsequent years, we had friends that we got together with or relatives. MR. MCDANIEL: Do you remember very much about the town? I mean, you know, did the town put up Christmas decorations? MRS. WRIGHT: You know, I don’t recall that in the very early days, and probably there wasn’t that much done before the war ended, but I don’t know. I don’t have much recollection of that. The thing that I do remember with us, is going out and cutting down a Christmas tree. Pretty often we would go, my dad actually owns some land in the Karns community and it had a lot of pine trees on it and we went out and cut down trees. But I don’t really remember that much celebration in the very early Oak Ridge days, but I’ve probably just forgotten that. MR. MCDANIEL: Ok, so your family came here in ‘44? MRS. WRIGHT: Three, ’43, December of ’43. MR. MCDANIEL: And you were five? MRS. WRIGHT: Umhum. MR. MCDANIEL: And so by the time you were 11 that is when they opened. MRS. WRIGHT: Opened the gates.
MR. MCDANIEL: Do you remember that? MRS. WRIGHT: I do. I remember it. I don’t, I can’t tell you specific memories. I was so disappointed about them opening the gates because I still hadn’t reached the age of 12 when you had to have a badge and I was really looking forward to having a badge. That signified being older and going through the gates, showing your badge and so I was sorry they opened the gates at that time. So I didn’t ever have that opportunity to have a badge. I just remember all the celebrations, but the gates were certainly a vital point in Oak Ridge. You know the people who came to visit had to have a pass and so we always met them at the gates, friends from Knoxville, relatives, and to lead them where ever they were going, to our house I guess mostly. Sometimes we had to sit in line to wait to get in or out to show, my parents show their badges. But actual specific things about the gate opening I don’t recall. I remember people being at Jackson Square and it being very exciting but that’s really all I remember about that. MR. MCDANIEL: Do you remember walking to the grocery store with your…? MRS. WRIGHT: Oh yeah, walk down through the woods, walk down Michigan Avenue and cut down one of the streets and walk down through woods behind the Chapel-on-the-Hill which is the United Church now. One thing that was really neat for kids, not only did they have the playgrounds at all the schools, but they had neighborhood playgrounds, like in the woods behind our house. Behind lots of neighborhoods there would be small playgrounds with like a slide and a swing set and maybe a sandbox and a teeter-totter and so... so many provisions were made for children. It was just a fantastic place for children, lots of activities at the schools, planned activities for children. There was a coach that stayed at the elementary school and of course all kinds of games, ballgames, dance clubs, and so on after school, even in elementary school. MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? MRS. WRIGHT: Yeah. MR. MCDANIEL: Now do you think that changed very much or did it kind of remain the same as you grew up? I mean after the Army left. MRS. WRIGHT: I think it changed a little, but not totally. I was not as involved after I was out of elementary school in that particular program but my siblings were. So it did remain for some time and the schools were just a center of activity for us. We just spent a lot of time at the schools. MR. MCDANIEL: Ok, so you say you grew up in Oak Ridge… MRS. WRIGHT: Grew up. MR. MCDANIEL: Grew up in Oak Ridge. MRS. WRIGHT: Right. MR. MCDANIEL: And just ended up staying here, got married… MRS. WRIGHT: Got married. MR. MCDANIEL: Had a family. Tell me about that. MRS. WRIGHT: Well I went to college and met my husband who actually co-oped in Oak Ridge. He’s from Mt. Juliet, Tennessee. He co-oped in Oak Ridge and we got married in 1959 and stayed in Oak Ridge. We lived in, I guess, about 15 years ago we bought about 20 acres in Roane County and lived in Kingston for 13 years until this Spring and moved back to Oak Ridge. So we’ve been here most of time. I've been here almost all my life actually. MR. MCDANIEL: So how many kids, children do you have? MRS. WRIGHT: I have two children, a son, Jeff, who’s in Raleigh, North Carolina, and a daughter, Wendy, and her husband. Both are married and have children and Wendy and her family are in Knoxville, Tennessee. MR. MCDANIEL: Ok, so did you work in Oak Ridge? MRS. WRIGHT: I worked for a short time at the plant before I had children, yes. MR. MCDANIEL: Which plant? MRS. WRIGHT: Y-12. MR. MCDANIEL: What did you do there? MRS. WRIGHT: My husband worked there and I worked as a secretary. MR. MCDANIEL: Ok, so through the years what kind of changes have you seen in Oak Ridge? Good, bad, you know. You lived here, you know. Your children grew up here. MRS. WRIGHT: Right. Oak Ridge was very different when I was young. I think because of the fact that it was a closed city and it kept that feeling even for a time after the gates were opened. It was always a very safe place to be. Of course, every place changes. I think Oak Ridge has changed like many other places have. It was still a very good place to grow up for my children as well. Very good schools and I thought plenty of activities for young people. I'm sure the youth would like to have more available but really there was always a lot going on, but it has changed. There are different places to eat. The Snow White, which was a big place to eat as I grew up, is probably something most old Oak Ridgers remember fondly and a different Downtown and a different movie theater and that kind of thing. MR. MCDANIEL: The Snow White, where was it originally? I mean, I know it was where Todd’s Maytag is at one point. MRS. WRIGHT: Yeah before that it....it was further west on the Turnpike where, let’s see, across from the Dodge dealer, kind of where the Physicians Plaza is now, kind of behind that. Of course, as most teenagers like to do, we spent a lot of time driving around the Snow White and then stopping for a little bit and then we would continue to circle around the Snow White. That was one of the big things to do. MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, my goodness. Where did you, this is kind of off the subject, but where did you all live in Kingston? MRS. WRIGHT: We lived on Poplar Springs Road, kind of in the country. We actually had a lake house at one time in what is known as Sugar Grove Valley and still had that when we bought the acreage and were there in ‘93 when we had the big blizzard. We lost a number of trees on our property on Poplar Springs and several trees fell on the roof of our lake house. After that we decided that two houses was really one too many for us to take care of. So we sold our lake house and just lived on Poplar Springs Road.
MR. MCDANIEL: Poplar Springs Road now that’s… MRS. WRIGHT: Off of Gallagher. MR. MCDANIEL: Off of Gallagher. MRS. WRIGHT: We were only, it was only about 15 miles from Oak Ridge. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. MRS. WRIGHT: Just a short trip. MR. MCDANIEL: Now was it on the north side of 40 or the south side of 40? MRS. WRIGHT: South. MR. MCDANIEL: South side. I'm trying to think, now is that… MRS. WRIGHT: It’s on the way to I-40. Is that north or south? MR. MCDANIEL: It’s on the way to I-40. MRS. WRIGHT: Yeah, not Poplar Creek. Now Poplar Creek is toward Oliver Springs. MR. MCDANIEL: Right, but if you go, if you go down Gallaher… MRS. WRIGHT: You turn left on Poplar Springs. You would turn right… MR. MCDANIEL: At that little church, is that little church there? MRS. WRIGHT: That is Poplar Springs. That just circles around on Gallaher. We turned right across from Lawnville Road and we were about half way around and Poplar Spring just circles. It’s just a small circle around Gallaher Road. MR. MCDANIEL: That’s right. I grew up in Kingston so… MRS. WRIGHT: Did you? We liked Kingston. MR. MCDANIEL: My mom and dad moved there in ‘56 and I was born in ‘57 and they still live in the same house they moved into. MRS. WRIGHT: Is that right? I like Kingston. I’m in a book club and a bridge club of Kingston people and still really enjoy that. MR. MCDANIEL: Well good. Do you have any other stories of when you were growing up in Oak Ridge, when you were a teenager, or any memories that you’d want to share. (Laughs) MRS. WRIGHT: Well, you know it’s hard to think about what kind of things to share. Oak Ridge was just always such a friendly community and I think it was a great place to grow up because there was no class distinction. Everyone always was kind of in the same boat and you didn’t know… It was really hard to tell, when I was young, who had money and who didn’t because everyone just seemed to be kind of the same. Because I guess we all lived in government housing and so that wasn’t an issue. I think in the very early days, one of the really neat things was since everyone was from a different place, everyone had to be friendly. Few people had telephones in the very early days. So the people or person on the street who had a telephone, you went to their house a lot to use their telephone and people just had to get to know each other. It was, I guess, like a big Army base and I think that atmosphere continued. Probably still is that way somewhat in Oak Ridge, that people are outgoing and friendly. It seems to me that way anyway. MR. MCDANIEL: So you’re a little crooked. Sit up a little bit. That’s ok. MRS. WRIGHT: Oh. MR. MCDANIEL: So, let’s see. So you, I imagine that you were in school. I really hadn’t touched on this very much, but I’d like to since you were a student at that time. I guess you were at school during segregation. MRS. WRIGHT: Yes. MR. MCDANIEL: During integration. MRS. WRIGHT: Integration. I was in high school. MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me a little bit about that, about what happened? MRS. WRIGHT: That was a very quiet thing in Oak Ridge as far as I know. We knew they were going to integrate the school and we talked about it. It just happened. I don’t think many people had strong feelings about that at all. I don’t remember that ever being a real problem. It probably became more difficult later on than it did in Oak Ridge in the very beginning. There were not very many black students and it just happened very easily as far as I was aware. MR. MCDANIEL: Do you think that it was because, I mean, this is a government town and the government said, “You’re going to integrate,” and people at Oak Ridge were used to doing, I don’t want to make it sound like they were used to doing what the government said… MRS. WRIGHT: (Laugh) What the government said. MR. MCDANIEL: I mean they were used to following the rules of the government somewhat and this was just, it seemed, being another thing that the government said they’re going to have to do. MRS. WRIGHT: Well… MR. MCDANIEL: I know that may simplify it a little bit but… MRS. WRIGHT: That could possibly be part of it. I think one of the different things about Oak Ridge, Oak Ridge was certainly not a typical southern town. There were people from so many different places and different countries even. So that was not all that different for Oak Ridge and there weren’t, well, I know there were many people with prejudices, but it wasn’t talked about quite as much as perhaps it was in other places. MR. MCDANIEL: Because Oak Ridge was already a melting pot? MRS. WRIGHT: It was a melting pot. MR. MCDANIEL: What about, how was that? I guess you grew up with it so it wasn’t really different. I mean you grew up with people that were from different cultures and different religions and different backgrounds. MRS. WRIGHT: Right. MR. MCDANIEL: And things such as that. MRS. WRIGHT: You just thought that was the way things were. It was like, I remember, after people, what had gone on in Oak Ridge as far as the bomb was concerned. In fact, the bomb was worked on here. People in Knoxville would say, “Aren’t you scared to live in Oak Ridge.” Well, no. People in Oak Ridge just didn’t ever think about anything like that. We lived here during that phase of Oak Ridge and we didn’t, I don’t know, I’m sure there were people who were concerned about it, but I didn’t ever hear people talk about being worried about living here due to the type of work that was going on here. But maybe I just haven’t been that tuned in to what the difficulties were. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. Do you remember your parents talking about after the bomb was dropped? You probably were a little too young to remember that. MRS. WRIGHT: Well, what I remember my parents talking about more was later on, as we were older, talking about that and talking about what people said. Of course, what was going on in Oak Ridge was always a big topic of discussion with their friends from Knoxville. I think they were always saying something to them about, “Well, don’t you really wonder what’s going on at the plant there?” And they were actually out of town when the war ended and my grandmother was staying with us and we just, we didn’t talk about the fact that the bomb was dropped, as much as we did about how happy we were that the war was over. MR. MCDANIEL: Right. Now you had brothers and sisters. MRS. WRIGHT: I did. When we first moved, there were two of us and the following spring I had another sister, following that I had another sister and then another brother. So there are five of us. MR. MCDANIEL: Five of you. How many of you are still in the area? MRS. WRIGHT: I’m the only one in Oak Ridge. I have a sister in Clinton, another sister in Chattanooga, and my brothers are in Nashville, and so were not, they’re not far away. MR. MCDANIEL: What about your children? MRS. WRIGHT: My children are, my son’s in Raleigh. My daughter’s in Knoxville. MR. MCDANIEL: That’s right. MRS. WRIGHT: So they’re pretty close too. MR. MCDANIEL: Pretty close. Is there anything else you can remember? Anything you want to talk about? MRS. WRIGHT: Well I guess there is one thing that was always interesting to some people about Oak Ridge. In the very early days, there was only one, maybe two church buildings, including the Chapel-on-the-Hill, and many weddings were held there. I went to First Methodist Church and we had Sunday school in the old high school, at Blankenship Field. Then it was a junior high and now just Blankenship Field remains, but from there we had church services in the Ridge Theatre, and another church had the part of the school that had the auditorium in it. So they had Sunday school and church in the other half of the school building. And different other churches met in other theaters. It became funny to visitors who would go to church with us and the children would often say as they were going in, “Oh, do we get to get popcorn?” And things like that we didn’t think of as being unusual, but to other people they were probably kind of different. It would seem different. MR. MCDANIEL: And that’s kind of interesting that it’s kind of come full circle now. MRS. WRIGHT: Right. MR. MCDANIEL: Because churches bought the Grove Theatre. MRS. WRIGHT: Right, exactly. Going back to that and I think it’s great that we’re using some of the old buildings. I really like the fact that some of the older buildings are remaining and we’re trying to use them. Its really miraculous pretty much everything was built for a short time, and the houses in particular, I think, were very well built, and here we are sixty years in houses that were supposed to last maybe 7 years.
MR. MCDANIEL: That’s amazing at how many people live in the same house that they moved in to. MRS. WRIGHT: They’re really are not that many that still live in the same houses, but there is a new interest I think. The young are buying some of the cemesto houses and working on them and I think that that’s really good. My daughter has several friends that have bought cemesto houses in Oak Ridge and have remodeled them and really love the feeling of being in a neighborhood that they have in those houses and being in the center of town. That is one real plus about many of those neighborhoods. MR. MCDANIEL: You know my wife and I, we got married, we lived in Oak Ridge. We got married 12 years ago and when we got married we rented a B house on East Price Road for a couple of years, and then we bought a D house on Pleasant Road, 100 Pleasant Road. MRS. WRIGHT: Umhum. MR. MCDANIEL: Off Pennsylvania, and that’s what we did. We remodeled it. We enclosed the garage because I needed an office...new windows, new roof, new siding, you know, everything and basically remodeled it. What possessed us to sell it, I don’t know. We should have stayed there. (Laugh) One thing was that back behind where the Highland Apartments and everything was right behind us across the… MRS. WRIGHT: Umhum. MR. MCDANIEL: And we didn’t, we were having children and we weren’t sure we wanted to live there, that was because there were stakeouts in our back yard. MRS. WRIGHT: Right. MR. MCDANIEL: Drug busts and such. But we did that and I’d love to get another D house and do the same thing to it. MRS. WRIGHT: That so funny. Our first house was a B house. I don’t know how many people whose first house was a B house. We really would love to have to remodel that house and stayed in it, but we didn’t really have enough yard. We looked for a D house and couldn’t find one. So we moved to the west end of Oak Ridge, but my parents were just appalled. They said, “Oh, you don’t want to move way out there. That’s just too far,” and we talked so often about how we still would not mind going back to a D house if we could find one. We’d really like something like that because they are so convenient. That’s such a great place to live in the middle of town. MR. MCDANIEL: Alright. Well I think we’re through that’s the end of that tape and…
[End of Interview]